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Nashville Theater Reviews

The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Nashville.

IF/THEN's Stunning Performances Intrigue Nashville Audiences

IF/THEN's Stunning Performances Intrigue Nashville Audiences

by Jeffrey Ellis — June 8, 2016

Who would have ever thought a musical about urban planning could be as effective and engaging, and as thoroughly compelling (if somewhat confusing and confounding, by turns) as If/Then, the latest work from the Pulitzer Prize-winning (for next to normal) duo of Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey?

BWW Review: Arts Center of Cannon County's ALWAYS, PATSY CLINE

BWW Review: Arts Center of Cannon County's ALWAYS, PATSY CLINE

by Jeffrey Ellis — June 6, 2016

Savannah Gannon makes a startling - and, no doubt, star-making - debut as country music superstar Patsy Cline in the Matt Smith-directed production of Ted Swindley's play with music Always, Patsy Cline, now onstage at Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County through June 18.

BWW Review: CFTA's 42nd STREET Taps Your Troubles Away

BWW Review: CFTA's 42nd STREET Taps Your Troubles Away

by Jeffrey Ellis — May 26, 2016

If there is a Broadway musical that more gleefully and accurately encapsulates the magic and mayhem of creating a brand spanking new blockbuster at the height of the Great Depression than 42nd Street, I want to see it post-haste!

BWW Review: Verge Theater Company's Beautifully Acted SKINLESS

BWW Review: Verge Theater Company's Beautifully Acted SKINLESS

by Jeffrey Ellis — May 24, 2016

Johnna Adams is a consummate storyteller: employing fantasy and fiction, conjecture and supposition, she weaves together a tale that is at once intensely intriguing and enormously off-putting, using her skill as a writer to transport her audience to an otherworldly place that exists only in her imag

BWW Review: Street Theatre Company's ASSASSINS Assuredly Intrigues Audiences

BWW Review: Street Theatre Company's ASSASSINS Assuredly Intrigues Audiences

by Jeffrey Ellis — May 23, 2016

Stephen Sondheim's Assassins - his musical treatment of the history of presidential assassinations in America - remains one of the most compelling and intriguing works to be found in the musical theater canon, focusing on a veritable rogue's gallery of historic figures whose infamy lives on decades

BWW Review: The Roxy Regional Theatre's AMERICAN IDIOT is Electrifyingly Immersive

BWW Review: The Roxy Regional Theatre's AMERICAN IDIOT is Electrifyingly Immersive

by Jeffrey Ellis — May 10, 2016

As exhilaratingly in-your-face as only the very best of contemporary theater can deliver, Green Day's American Idiot - now onstage in a startlingly emphatic and exuberant production at Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre - exemplifies just how far the company itself has come since its beginnings as

BWW Review: ACT 1's COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN

BWW Review: ACT 1's COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN

by Jeffrey Ellis — May 9, 2016

What happens when a group of teenagers idolize a celebrity - a figure from popular culture whose charisma ensures he will live on forever despite his death at a young age - reunite some 20 years later to further venerate their crush and to recall his impact on their young lives? That's the question

BWW Review: 4th Story Theater's GOD OF CARNAGE

BWW Review: 4th Story Theater's GOD OF CARNAGE

by Jeffrey Ellis — May 6, 2016

Eviscerating modern manners and mores with surgical skill and startling focus, playwright Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage is among the most popular contemporary stage comedies of the early 21st century.

BWW Review: Towne Centre Theatre's PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE

BWW Review: Towne Centre Theatre's PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE

by Jeffrey Ellis — May 2, 2016

Will Miranne and Daniel Morgan give top-notch performances, playing Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in soon-to-be Lipscomb University theater grad Jonah Jackson's production of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, now onstage at Brentwood's Towne Centre Theatre through May 7.

BWW Review: Real Housewives of Sneden's Landing: RUMORS

BWW Review: Real Housewives of Sneden's Landing: RUMORS

by Jeffrey Ellis — April 29, 2016

Neil Simon's Rumors - one of the most popular stage farces of the late 20th century - is given its due with the fourth production at Nashville's iconic and I daresay historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre.

BWW Review: MAMMA MIA! Dances Onto the TPAC Stage

BWW Review: MAMMA MIA! Dances Onto the TPAC Stage

by Jeffrey Ellis — April 27, 2016

Make no mistake about it: the current production of Mamma Mia!, the musical theater hit now onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall is just as entertaining, just as over-the-top in all its ABBAesque glory that audiences cannot help but be awestruck by the sheer theatricalit

BWW Review: Nashville Ballet's CARMINA BURANA and LAYLA & THE MAJNUN

BWW Review: Nashville Ballet's CARMINA BURANA and LAYLA & THE MAJNUN

by Jeffrey Ellis — April 22, 2016

Nashville Ballet brings its 30th anniversary season to a close with two works choreographed by artistic director and CEO Paul Vasterlling:  a dazzlingly intricate and grand revival of Carmina Burana, set to the timeless music of Carl Orff, and the world premiere of Layla & The Majnun, which feature

BWW Review: SuperMAS Leaps Tall Buildings

BWW Review: SuperMAS Leaps Tall Buildings

by Jeffrey Ellis — April 20, 2016

Oh, for the love of God, we get it, we get it: The superwomen – who might best be described as the superheroines of Nashville's theaterati and assorted non-stagey types – of SuperMAS love each other, admire each other's mad musical theater skills and get along as well as a bunch of Canadians try

BWW Review: LDoT's YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN

BWW Review: LDoT's YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN

by Jeffrey Ellis — April 15, 2016

Onstage through Saturday night at Lipscomb University's Collins Auditorium, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, represents a musical theater genre that has fallen out of favor in the 21st Century: its very innocence and perceived lack of guile guarantee that it will ultimately become the stuff of comm

BWW Review: CCP's SPARKLEY CLEAN FUNERAL SINGERS

BWW Review: CCP's SPARKLEY CLEAN FUNERAL SINGERS

by Jeffrey Ellis — April 2, 2016

Lori Fischer's The Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers does what so many shows before it have attempted: To create a completely new world out of whole cloth and set it down amid the already existing world (in which we mere mortals ply our collective trade), peopled by characters who are easy to love or a

BWW Review: Gaslight's BASKERVILLE is A Yawn

BWW Review: Gaslight's BASKERVILLE is A Yawn

by Jeffrey Ellis — April 1, 2016

Ken Ludwig created one of theater's best-loved and critically acclaimed farces with Lend Me A Tenor, then updated the book of one of musical theater's most revered Gershwin titles (Girl Crazy) with the long-running and equally beloved Crazy For You.

BWW Review: Nashville Rep's Jazz-Age Triumph CHICAGO

BWW Review: Nashville Rep's Jazz-Age Triumph CHICAGO

by Jeffrey Ellis — March 20, 2016

Chicago is one of my favorite cities on the planet, so it goes that Chicago, the Tony Award- and Oscar-winning musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb, is also one of my favorite stage musicals.

BWW Review: Circle Players' CHILDREN OF EDEN

BWW Review: Circle Players' CHILDREN OF EDEN

by Jeffrey Ellis — March 19, 2016

It would have taken a miracle to save the opening night of Circle Players' Children of Eden - one of the most eagerly anticipated productions of the season in Music City - from the wrath of God: in this case an abysmal sound design that prevented the audience from hearing Lauren Frances Jones' exqui

BWW Review: Paul, Adcock Sizzle in ACCC's MEMPHIS, THE MUSICAL

BWW Review: Paul, Adcock Sizzle in ACCC's MEMPHIS, THE MUSICAL

by Jeffrey Ellis — March 13, 2016

Melinda Paul and Michael Adcock lead an exhilarating production of the Tony Award-winning Memphis, the Musical - which features an exuberant cast that blends veteran talents like Michael McGee and Susan Walsworth with rising young performers such as Quantavius Rankins and Jordan McCullough, all of w

BWW Review: National Tour of PHANTOM Continues to Enchant Nashville Audiences

BWW Review: National Tour of PHANTOM Continues to Enchant Nashville Audiences

by Jeffrey Ellis — March 12, 2016

After 28 years, more than 10,000 performances on Broadway (where it reigns as the longest running show in history), countless tours and with rabid fans greeting the show at every stop, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera continues to amaze and delight, as noted in its press opening at Nas

BWW Review: Street Theater Company's IN THE HEIGHTS

BWW Review: Street Theater Company's IN THE HEIGHTS

by Jeffrey Ellis — March 5, 2016

Nashville audiences this weekend are treated to a unique opportunity insofar as In The Heights is concerned: two stunning and startling, yet somehow altogether different, productions of Miranda's first masterpiece (you young people who are caught up in the specter of Hamilton have this earlier work

BWW Review: Hume Fogg's IN THE HEIGHTS

BWW Review: Hume Fogg's IN THE HEIGHTS

by Jeffrey Ellis — March 4, 2016

Nashville audiences this weekend find themselves with two concurrently running opportunities to bask in the warm glow of Miranda's heartfelt creation as Hume-Fogg Academic High School's Theatre presents In The Heights for a three-performance run (which premiered last night - on Broadway, naturally,

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